Lenger Seafoods Vietnam shipped its first container of ngao oyster grown in northern Nam Dinh province to Italy on June 10, ushering in a new opportunity for local breeders.

Nam Dinh is home to about 2,000 hectares of ngao oyster farming, mostly in Giao Thuy and Nghia Hung districts, that produce over 30,000 tonnes of oyster annually, said Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Phung Hoan.

A majority of the locality’s ngao oysters have been consumed by local buyers while a small amount have been exported to China by petty traders.

After one year of construction, the Lenger Seafoods Vietnam, a member of Lenger Seafoods from the Netherlands, has become operational, setting the scene for the development of the seafood processing industry and ngao farming in the province.

The company has also helped establish a supply chain, from breeding, harvesting, to transporting and processing, under strict requirements of Italy.

Ngao oysters of Nam Dinh gaining access to the foreign market will bring many benefits to the province, Hoan noted, urging businesses and farmers involving in the supply chain to comply with the importer’s requirements.According to Nguyen Ho Nguyen, Director General of Lenger Seafoods Vietnam, the firm collects ngao oysters from farms certified to have clean and safe water environment.

After harvested, the oysters will be processed in a closed hi-tech production line from cleaning to preservation to ensure the oysters to stay fresh when they reach to the end consumers in the EU market, he added.

Lenger Seafoods Vietnam is capable of producing up to 300 tonnes of ngao per day. It expects to soon export ngao to more markets, including the Netherlands, Spain, France, the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States.

It plans to send about ten more containers of ngao to the EU this June and develop a distribution channel in supermarkets and restaurants across the country.